Re: [boost] [GSOC]SIMD Library

Subject: Re: [boost] [GSOC]SIMD Library
From: Joel Falcou (joel.falcou_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-03-29 11:23:25

On 29/03/11 16:14, Domagoj Saric wrote:
> That's great too...actually I'd rather have it this way than only the
> higher level vector functions as usually found in other libraries
> (especially if you cannot not have them, such as with the OS X
> Accelerate framework, plus it can prove to be more future proof...i.e.
> Apple updates it for new architectures and targets like iPad2, Intel
> AVX...)...

We have everything up to AVX

> OTOH also providing a higher level interface (as Boost.Range and/or
> Boost.Math algorithm overloads or something similar) top of the lower
> level one afterwards would be great...

we plan on looking at making some simd_range so you cna pass them to 
boost:;range::some_algo too. Def. a work for GSoC

> While staying at the lowest possible level yes, I agree. As soon as we
> depart from the 'metal' however, the amount of boilerplate increases and
> (mentioned) libraries can become useful...
> I'm not saying this is critical rather nice to have...

We have such boilerplate somehow, we can discuss what's make and doesn't 
make it.

> Hmm...well yes, if it is going to be called Boost.SIMD than it probably
> should be restricted to the low 'hardware abstraction' level...The
> higher level vector and math functions could than be provided through/by
> Boost.Range, Boost.Math, Boost.uBLAS...
> I would certainly like to have both layers in Boost...

My idea was have Boost.SIMD as an infrastructure library for other 
higher level one to work upon

> Could you perhaps help me with a few pointers on how to use/test NT2
> (e.g. performing sincos on a 1D vector)?
> I checked out the latest revision from SVN, and downloaded the
> documentation for the official version 2 but it is in French which I
> unfortunately do not understand. The examples for version 2 that contain
> the cos() function also do not work as they mention a nonexistent
> eve.hpp header...

We have to close the SF account. Everythign is in github atm ;)
Docs are lackign so you may fidn it dense to use. Some basic doc and
examples will be uploaded soon.

> ps. does NT2 support SSE1 for single precision floats? Unfortunately
> this is a must for me (and probably for a lot of people as there are
> quite a few Athlon XP's around) so I cannot use SSE2+ only libraries
> like Eigen...

Eigen only support double ? Wow, ell for SSEx we have function for all 
integers, double and float.

> pps. if you are considering MKL you should probably also consider free
> alternatives like AMD's ACML and Apple's Accelerate framework...

Something to look for the benchmarks yup.